Lifestyle sport has become a significant sociological phenomenon, with millions participating worldwide. Using windsurfing as a case study, this thesis focuses on core members of this subculture to discover their motivations for involvement and the degree to which they are willing to sacrifice other areas of their lives in order to participate. The thesis explores the contention that this level of sacrifice amounts to resistance to the dominant consumerist culture of our society. The study examines the way subculture members manifest an embodied critique of urban experience that takes place outside of that environment in natural spaces, using time that consumerist imperatives would have them in the earn-spend spiral dictated by that ideology. It does this through a twelve month ethnographic study, with the author as a complete participant, then as a participant observer, completing formal interviews with a number of selected core members of the subculture. Through interviewing and observation it became clear that it is only possible for subculture members to participate through the consumption of considerable quantities of the material objects associated with the activity. This means that participants are resisting consumerist culture through the consumption of consumer goods. This contradiction goes to the heart of the ways that consumerist ideology co-opts resistant behaviour. The study shows that windsurfers are resistant to consumerism in a number of ways. The rejection of traditional sporting values, the use of time in opposition to dominant practices, the rejection of wealth as the primary measure of success, and resisting cultural expectations are all manifestations of this resistance. The niche visual media of the subculture creates a dreamworld of natural perfection and freedom. The way that the visual culture mediates the paradox central to my thesis is by valourising a lifestyle, and those who adopt it, rather than selling consumer goods.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], ii, 93 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-93).

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No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation Ritual v.24 entregue secretaria CMCD.pdf: 9377234 bytes, checksum: 547226fde411215191d5cc0181cf9393 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-05 / Although the consumer culture field has addressed the role ritual plays in consumption, defining and describing this construct and explaining its dimensions, cultural meanings, elements, components, and practices, as well as revealing the differentiation in consumer practices, no research has yet identified how consumers, through ritual practices, establish and manipulate their own differentiation from other consumers during their rite of passage from one cultural category of person to another. Drawing on key concepts from ritual theory, my research addresses the role played by ritual in connoisseurship consumption. Conducting an ethnographic study on connoisseurship in specialty coffee consumption, I immersed myself in the field, visiting and observing consumers in high-end independent coffee shops in North America—Toronto, Montreal, Seattle, and New York—from August 2013 to July 2014. I also immersed myself in the Brazilian specialty coffee field, in Belo Horizonte and São Paulo, from August 2014 to January 2015, to compare and contrast the specialty coffee consumption cultures of Brazil, the United States, and Canada. I used long interviews, participant observation, netnography, introspection, and historical newspaper analysis to collect the data, which was then interepreted using a hermeneutic approach, comparing consumers’ stages in their connoisseurship rites of passage. To extend my understanding of connoisseurship consumption, I also collected data from the wine consumption context. In this dissertation, I introduce the idea of the taste transformation ritual, theorizing the process as a connoisseurship rite of passage, which converts regular consumers into connoisseur consumers. My research reveals that connoisseur consumers are amateurs in different stages of the connoisseurship rite of passage. They transform themselves by establishing and reinforcing the oppositions between mass and connoisseurship consumption. The taste transformation ritual involves the following elements: (1) variation in the choices of high-quality products, (2) the place to perform the tasting, (3) the moment of tasting, (4) the tasting act, (5) time and money investment, (6) increased subcultural and social capital, and (7) perseverance on the rite of passage. Connoisseur consumers participate in the connoisseurship consumption community. This heterogeneous community is composed of outstanding professionals, connoisseurs, and regular consumers. The forces that drive the community, as identified in this study, are the production of subcultural and social capital, emulation of professional and ritual consumption practices, enactment tensions between the community members, commercial friendship, and status games. I develop a broader theoretical account that builds on and extends a number of concepts regarding ritual consumption, taste, heterogeneous community, and connoisseur consumers. / Apesar de o campo da cultura de consumo ter abordado o papel do ritual no consumo, definindo e descrevendo este constructo e explicando suas dimensões, significados culturais, elementos, componentes e práticas, assim como revelando a diferenciação nas práticas dos consumidores, nenhuma pesquisa ainda identificou como os consumidores, por meio de práticas de ritual, estabelecem e manipulam suas próprias diferenciações em relação a outros consumidores durante o rito de passagem deles de uma categoria cultural de pessoa para outra. Tendo como base conceitos-chaves da teoria sobre ritual, minha pesquisa aborda o papel do ritual no consume de apreciação. Conduzindo um estudo etnográfico sobre consumo de apreciação de cafés especiais, eu realizei uma imersão no campo, visitando e observando consumidores em cafeterias independentes de destaque na América do Norte – Toronto, Montreal, Seattle e Nova York – de agosto de 2013 a julho de 2014. Eu também realizei uma imersão no contexto de cafés especiais no Brasil em Belo Horizonte e São Paulo, de agosto de 2014 a janeiro de 2015, para comparar e contrastar as culturas de consume de cafés especiais de Brasil, Estados Unidos e Canadá. Eu usei entrevistas longas, observação participante, netnografia, introspecção e análise histórica de artigos de jornais para coletar os dados, que foram interpretados utilizando a abordagem hermenêutica, comparando os consumidores em diferentes estágios durante o rito de passagem de apreciação. Para estender meu entendimento sobre o consumo de apreciação, eu também coletei dados sobre o contexto de consumo de vinho. Nesta tese, eu introduzo a ideia de ritual de transformação do gosto, teorizando sobre o processo do rito de passagem de apreciação, que converte consumidores regulares em consumidores apreciadores. Minha pesquisa revela que consumidores apreciadores são amadores em diferentes estágios do rito de passagem de apreciação. Eles se transformam pelo estabelecimento e reforço de oposições entre o consume de massa e de apreciação. O ritual de transformação do gosto envolve os seguintes elementos: (1) variação nas escolhas de produtos de alta qualidade, (2) o lugar para realizar a degustação, (3) o momento da degustação, (4) o ato de degustar, (5) investimento de tempo e dinheiro, (6) aumento do capital subcultural e social, (7) perseverança no rito de passagem. Os consumidores apreciadores participam da comunidade de consumo de apreciação. Essa comunidade heterogênea é composta por profissionais excelentes, apreciadores e consumidores regulares. As forças que direcionam a comunidade, de acordo com o que foi identificado no estudo, são a produção de capital social e subcultural, emulação do profissional e das práticas de ritual de consumo, tensões de performance entre os membros da comunidade, amizade comercial e jogo de status. Eu desenvolvo uma ampla consideração teórica que desenvolve e estende um número de conceitos em relação a ritual e consumo, gosto, comunidade heterogênea e consumidores apreciadores.

The rise of social media in general and Instagram in particular has enabled a new type of celebrities, called micro-celebrities, that nowadays are being increasingly used by companies to endorse their products or establish their brands. While celebrity endorsement as a type of stealth branding together with some other marketing techniques characteristic of postmodernism were predicted to be unveiled and scorned by consumers (Holt, 2002), there are signs that through the practices of micro-celebrities, the language and logic of marketing have become even more ubiquitous in our contemporary social life (Khamis et al., 2017). The purpose of this research is to investigate the interplay of Instagram micro-celebrities with brands of the social media marketing ecosystem with the aim to add to the understanding of the spotted contradiction. The research adopted the case study design. Some preliminary interviews with advertising agencies and brands allowed to construct two independent cases where Instagram influencers were used in campaigns by brands of different scale. Semi-structured interviews with brand owners, marketing specialists of advertising agencies, Instagram influencers, and their followers were used to collect qualitative data. The obtained information was further analyzed through the lens of Bourdieu’s social theory and Lacan’s theory of the four discourses. The research reveals that despite Holt’s conclusive extrapolations, stealth branding techniques are exponentially growing not only in their popularity but also in efficiency. The study also suggests that even though today’s consumers indeed require an appendage to the product being consumed in the form of symbol or particular tacit knowledge (post postmodern consumer culture according to Holt) the dialectical model provided by Holt seems to be hasty enough to build since we manage to distil some current processes characteristic not only for post postmodern and postmodern period but also for modern and pre modern ones.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-03-07Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:20:23Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 trinca_tp_me_mar.pdf: 1087789 bytes, checksum: 70e7d08a84a84f1a4ee18a165d7e0ac3 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Presenciamos diariamente no contexto das sociedades ocidentais industrializadas a frenética e obsessiva importância dada ao corpo e à moda, ambos se entrelaçam aos padrões de beleza disseminados pela indústria cultural, o que propicia uma crescente corrida ao consumo de novidades estéticas. Diante disso, objetiva-se compreender, por meio de uma análise histórico-social, o desenvolvimento do fenômeno do culto ao corpo e à aparência, tendo em vista as práticas cotidianas da cultura do consumo aprofundadas no capitalismo avançado. Considerando que há uma correspondência entre a produção cultural e as experiências e modos de subjetividade nas sociedades capitalistas contemporâneas e à luz de uma perspectiva materialista - embora dialogando com autores de diferentes abordagens epistemológicas - procuramos identificar como a lógica da mercadoria e da racionalidade instrumental se manifestam tanto na moda quanto na busca de um corpo ideal. / We witness every day, in the context of the industrialized western societies, the frenzied and obsessive importance given to body and fashion both intertwined with the beauty patterns disseminated by the cultural industry, what propitiates a growing run to the consumption of aesthetic innovations. In that sense, the goal is to understand, using a historical-social analysis, the development of the phenomenon of the cult of physical fitness and appearance, considering the daily practices of the culture of consumption deepened involved with the advanced capitalism. Considering that there is an equivalence between cultural production and experiences and subjectivity manners in the contemporary capitalist societies and through a materialistic perspective - although dialoguing with authors from different epistemology approaches - we tried to identify how the logic of merchandise and instrumental rationality appear as much in fashion as in the search of an ideal body.

The aim of this study is to investigate the interrelationships between place and taste through a multi-sited ethnography of music consumption. Place and taste are important theoretical constructs that have been studied extensively across the humanities and social sciences. Yet, there is a scarcity of research that attempts to bring together these constructs in the fields of marketing and consumer research and beyond. In particular, prior consumer culture theory (CCT) research has not taken into account the spatial processes through which consumers enact, perform and further develop their tastes in the market place. More significantly, little empirical research illustrates how different consumption spaces tend to orchestrate and shape consumers’ tastes. As such, this study focuses on the context of music consumption and aims to explore spatial taste formation processes via consumers’ aesthetic experiences in popular (festival) and classical (concert hall) music places within the fields of indie and classical music consumption respectively. The emergent findings are structured upon four chapters (papers) and develop specific research objectives which revolve around the overarching aim of the study, namely the exploration of the interrelationships between place and taste. This study brings together both structural and experiential dimensions of taste and highlights the ontological significance of phenomenological understandings of space and place for marketing and consumer research.

The rapid increase in car ownership has caused rigorous issues for people living in the major cities in China, which is observe from traffic pressure, the inconvenience of city travelling, and air pollution. While the fast development of digital service platforms based on the Internet provides an alternative approach to touch the problems, leading a researchable phenomenon, online car-sharing service in China. This paper strives to explore the impact of car sharing on millennial sustainability attitudes by using the daily service on apps to ‘drive less, share more’. The paper is conducted using mixed research methods in Suzhou, China. Principally, the researchers interviewed ten car- sharing consumers during shared ride. To ensure the creditability and reliability, the paper collected 326 online survey responses from local car-sharing platforms as comparable data. The results show that most millennials agree car-sharing service makes their traffic modes more convenient, and taking shared ride more compared to self-driving has a significant influence on social and environmental issues in cities. Also, some respondents present willingness or already take actions on giving up car ownerships. However, the result also emphasises the fundamental reasons for millennials to participate in car-sharing service, which is personalised service and reasonable price. The paper closes with three outcomes, sharing economy as ‘Development’, digital service as ‘Innovation’, and sustainability as ‘The future’. They not only enrich the current literature research between Millennials and sharing economy, but also promote further strategies for car-sharing companies with empirical data.

Advertising and media creates and maintains standardized norms and beauty ideals for how women should look and it is often not realistic or representative of ordinary women. Consumers are now demanding representation of women who differs from the unreachable ideals and show how ordinary women actually look. Despite various companies try to include different types of women, they are met with criticism. It becomes clear that it is difficult for companies to represent ordinary women. Instead of using models to represent “ordinary” women Cellbes has their customers as models. How these women are portrayed and perceived and whether they differ from the traditional portrayal of women in advertising is examined in our study. This is with the aim of examining how "ordinary" women are communicated and understood from a consumer-cultural perspective, based on the commercial female representation that addresses women with "ordinariness" as a selling point.A critical discourse analysis combined with a netnographic case study have been applied as the design of the study. The gathered material consists of advertising images with associated texts and comments as well as a discussion in chat format. The material has been collected through screenshots from Cellbes’ website, Facebook and Instagram as well as from a focus group. The result was thematized from the identified discourses regarding the female representation. The themes identified are the following: solidarity, ambassadors, bodies, age, motherhood, exclusion and the reality effect. Within the various discourses, the result was analyzed and discussed related to previous research and the theoretical framework. "Ordinary" women are portrayed in commercial use with meaning-bearing signs that indicate their "ordinarity". Cellbes establish women in reality by letting their personalities appear in the images. Cellbes portrays “ordinary” women as larger and older than previous norms and ideals, which the viewers of the images appreciate and can partially identify with. To some extent, viewers are still influenced by the traditional portrayal, as they willingly identify themselves with models that are younger than themselves. Cellbes portrays "ordinary" women more deviant than the viewer's perception of ordinary women. In order for the representation to be accepted by the viewers it is necessary to highlight one, different from the traditional portrayal, attribute at a time. / Reklam och media skapar och upprätthåller normer och skönhetsideal för hur kvinnor ska se ut. Skönhetsidealen som massmedia har förmedlat är ofta inte realistiska eller representativa för “vanliga” kvinnor. Konsumenter efterfrågar nu kvinnor som strider mot de ouppnåeliga idealen och visar upp hur “vanliga” kvinnor ser ut. Trots olika företags försök att inkludera olika typer av kvinnor möts de av kritik. Det blir tydligt att det finns en svårighet för företagen att representera “vanliga” kvinnor. Istället för att använda modeller som ska representera den “vanliga” kvinnan har företaget Cellbes använt sig av konsumenter som fått agera modeller. Hur dessa kvinnor framställs och uppfattas samt om det skiljer sig från den traditionella framställningen av kvinnan i reklam undersöks i vår studie. Detta med syftet att utifrån den kommersiella kvinnliga representationen som vänder sig till kvinnor, med “vanlighet” som försäljningsargument, undersöka hur “vanliga” kvinnor kommuniceras och förstås ur ett konsumentkulturellt perspektiv.En kritisk diskursanalys i kombination med en netnografisk fallstudie har tillämpats för studiens utformning. Det bearbetade materialet består av reklambilder med tillhörande texter och kommentarer samt en diskussion i chattformat. Materialet har samlats in genom skärmdumpar från Cellbes hemsida, Facebook och Instagram samt från en fokusgrupp. Resultatet tematiserades utifrån identifierade diskurser gällande den kvinnliga framställningen. De teman som identifierats är följande: gemenskap, ambassadörer, kroppar, ålder, moderskap, exkludering och realitetseffekten. Under de olika diskurserna analyserades och diskuterades resultatet utifrån tidigare forskning och teoretiskt ramverk. “Vanliga” kvinnor framställs kommersiellt med meningsbärande tecken som tyder på deras “vanlighet”. Cellbes förankrar kvinnorna i verkligheten genom att låta deras personligheter synas i bilderna. Cellbes framställer “vanliga” kvinnor som större och äldre än tidigare normer och ideal, vilket betraktarna av bilderna uppskattar och delvis kan identifiera sig med. I viss mån präglas betraktarna fortfarande av den traditionella framställningen då de gärna identifierar sig med modeller som är yngre än de själva. Cellbes framställer “vanliga” kvinnor mer avvikande än vad som stämmer överens med betraktarnas egna uppfattningar av “vanliga” kvinnor. För att framställningen ska accepteras av betraktarna gäller det att framställa ett, från den traditionella framställningen, avvikande attribut i taget.

Abstract  Background: E-commerce and omni-channel retailing strategies have emerged with digitalization. Digital channels have affected many parts of the daily life for consumers and as a result the consumer’s decision-making processes have become more complex. Born natives are a generation of consumers that have grown up having access to digital technology and their behaviors form a unique phenomenon as consumers within the omni-channel environment. At the same time, continuous growth in the Swedish furniture industry has allowed for new retailing strategies to emerge. The sample of born natives born during the 1990’s provides a unique insight in how these consumers behave and interact in the Swedish omni-channel furniture retailing environment.  Research question: How does the omni-channel retailing environment affect decision-making Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how digital native consumers who now comprise a larger consumer segment on the furniture market perceive the omni-channel environment in addition to how the digital omni-channel environment affects their decision- making process when it comes to furniture purchases in terms of perceived risks, purposes, and consumer benefits.  Methodology: This study is of qualitative nature which approaches the research problem and purpose with a relativistic philosophical stance. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to provide relevant data by individual consumers, and which have been analyzed with a hermeneutical approach. An inductive approach was adopted to explore the phenomenon.  Conclusion: Consumers perform multiple different actions and adopt different behaviors when operating in the furniture omni-channel retailing environment. Risk aversion, identity building, entertainment and channel selection are all aspects of furniture shopping that are impacted by digital natives operating in the omni-channel retailing environment.

[pt] Esta tese de doutorado investiga aspectos relacionados à participação em cruzeiros marítimos por consumidores emergentes, pertencentes à chamada nova classe média brasileira . O arcabouço teórico do estudo está vinculado à corrente teórica denominada CCT – Consumer Culture Theory, ancorando-se particularmente no modelo conceitual proposto por McCracken (1986) sobre a transferência de significados do mundo culturalmente constituído para o consumidor e nas metáforas de consumo propostas por Holt (1995). Partiu-se do entendimento de que o consumo é essencialmente simbólico, uma vez que o consumidor atribui a bens e serviços significados que vão além do aspecto meramente utilitário. Buscou-se identificar a natureza dos significados atribuídos a cruzeiros marítimos por consumidores emergentes, assim como elementos do processo pelo qual se dá a transferência de significados do mundo culturalmente constituído para o consumidor. Adotou-se, assim, uma abordagem interpretativa, em que o que está em jogo não são os aspectos objetivos do consumo, mas a subjetividade inerente à percepção do consumidor em relação ao fenômeno pesquisado. A pesquisa desenvolveu-se por meio de combinação sistemática entre teoria e campo, seguindo a abordagem abdutiva proposta por Dubois e Gadde (2002). O estudo caracteriza-se ainda como pesquisa multimétodos, sendo constituído por três trabalhos empíricos que buscam entender o fenômeno investigado a partir de diferentes perspectivas. Os três estudos empíricos que compõem esta tese de doutorado são: (i) análise de conteúdo de anúncios de empresas que oferecem cruzeiros marítimos; (ii) grupos de foco com consumidores emergentes que ainda não haviam participado de um cruzeiro; e (iii) observação participante em cruzeiros marítimos posicionados para este segmento de consumidores. Por meio desses três estudos, buscou-se identificar a natureza simbólica dos cruzeiros marítimos para consumidores emergentes, tanto no que se refere à associação dos cruzeiros marítimos a significados atrelados ao produto por meio da propaganda das empresas organizadoras de cruzeiros, como aqueles que lhe são atribuídos pelos próprios consumidores. No primeiro estudo foram analisados 60 anúncios de empresas que oferecem cruzeiros marítimos, veiculados no semestre que antecedeu a temporada de cruzeiros 2011/2012, utilizando análise de conteúdo quantitativa e qualitativa. No segundo estudo, foram realizados quatro grupos de foco, com o propósito de entender o conteúdo simbólico presente no imaginário desse grupo, já que os consumidores que dele participaram não haviam tido ainda a experiência de consumo, embora tivessem a intenção de fazê-lo. Por fim, a observação participante foi realizada em dois cruzeiros. A primeira observação participante foi encoberta, ou seja, a pesquisadora conviveu com os participantes do cruzeiro sem revelar sua identidade, o que levou à realização de entrevistas em profundidade após o término do cruzeiro; a segunda foi aberta, tendo a pesquisadora revelado seu propósito durante o cruzeiro e realizado as entrevistas em profundidade ao longo do mesmo. Os métodos utilizados permitiram identificar tanto os significados veiculados pela propaganda das empresas ofertantes de cruzeiros marítimos, como aqueles que os consumidores associam ao consumo desse tipo de lazer. Verificou-se que a propaganda não surge como elemento principal no processo de transferência de significado para esses consumidores, sendo a difusão boca a boca mais importante, em função de sua credibilidade, além das imagens presentes no imaginário coletivo. Além de confirmar as metáforas de consumo propostas por Holt, o estudo identificou novas metáforas, em particular a de consumo como realização , em que os consumidores emergentes utilizam o consumo de cruzeiros como forma de evidenciar, para si mesmos e para os demais, sua ascensão social. / [en] This thesis investigates aspects related to participation in maritime cruises for emerging consumers belonging to the so called new Brazilian middle class. The theoretical framework of the study is linked to the theoretical trend called CCT - Consumer Culture Theory, anchoring particularly in the conceptual model proposed by McCracken (1986) on the transfer of meaning from the culturally constituted world to the consumer and the consumer metaphors proposed by Holt (1995). It started with the understanding that consumption is essentially symbolic, since consumers assign meanings to goods and services that go beyond the purely utilitarian aspect. It sought to identify the nature of the meanings assigned to cruises by emerging consumers, as well as elements of the process by which meanings are transferred from the culturally constituted world to the consumer. Thus, an interpretive approach was adopted, in which what is at stake is not the objective aspects of consumption, but the subjectivity inherent to the consumer s perception regarding the researched phenomenon. The research was developed through a systematic combination between theory and field, following the abductive approach proposed by Dubois and Gadde (2002). The three empirical studies that comprise this thesis are: (i) content analysis of advertisements from companies offering cruises; (ii) focus groups with emerging consumers who had not yet participated in a cruise; and (iii) participant observation in a cruise targeted at this consumer segment. Through these three studies, it sought to identify the symbolic nature of cruises to emerging consumers with regard to the association of such cruises to the meanings attached to products through the advertising of cruise organizer companies, as well as those meanings attributed to the cruise by the consumers themselves. In the first study 60 ads published by cruise companies were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative content analysis. These ads were published in the semester preceding the 2011/2012 cruise season. In the second study, four focus groups were conducted, with the purpose of understanding the symbolic content present in the imagination of this group, as consumers participating had not yet experienced of this type of consumption, although they intended to do so. Finally, the participant observation was carried out in two cruises. The first participant observation was covert, meaning that the researcher experienced the cruise with the participants without revealing her identity, which led to the realization of in-depth interviews after the cruise; the second participant observation was overt, the researcher revealed her purpose during the cruise, and in-depth interviews were conducted during the trip. The methods allowed for the identification of both the meanings conveyed by the advertisement of companies that offer cruises, and those that consumers associate to the consumption of this type of leisure. Results indicate that advertisements do not appear as the main element in the process of meaning transference for these consumers; word of mouth is the more important and credible information dissemination path, as well as the images present in the collective imagination. Besides confirming the metaphors of consumption proposed by Holt, the study identified new metaphors, in particular that of consumption as achievement, where emerging consumers use consumption of maritime cruises as a way to demonstrate to themselves and to others, their social advancement.